Kayakers were among the first to paddle into the 750-foot channel that eventually will link Lake Merritt to the estuary, S.F. Bay.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Kayakers were among the first to paddle into the 750-foot channel...

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Two gondolas were among the little armada that was first to venture into the channel that had been dammed up for 140 years.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Two gondolas were among the little armada that was first to venture...

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A whaleboat, one of two this day, glides into the opened channel, propelled by a crew from Oakland Women's Rowing Club.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

A whaleboat, one of two this day, glides into the opened channel,...

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Oakland City Council president Patricia Kernighan, (speaking) and Mayor Jean Quan were on hand to help celebrate the opening of the waterway on Friday Feb. 22, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. A major milestone in the effort to reconnect Lake Merritt to the Bay was marked with the re-opening of a 750-foot-section of the Lake Merritt channel.

A parade of little boats marked a big day for Oakland's Lake Merritt on Friday, when Mayor Jean Quan and a platoon of city officials opened a channel that will one day connect the lake with the Oakland Estuary and San Francisco Bay.

It was a historic moment: The channel leading to Lake Merritt has been dammed up for 140 years. "This was a long time coming," Quan said.

There are still obstacles between the lake and the estuary, including a culvert, a pumping station and a low bridge that carries busy railroad tracks, but Friday's ceremony was hailed as an important first step.

The channel that was reopened had been clogged for years, with a culvert on one end and, on the other, a 12-lane street that Oakland City Council President Patricia Kernighan called "a mini freeway." The channel banks were bleak and uninviting. "It was a no-man's-land," said Kernighan. "Nobody came here."

The remade channel area includes a paved trail, a pedestrian bridge and restoration of a tidal marsh. A tree-lined boulevard has replaced the 12-lane roadway. It was paid for in part by Oakland Measure DD, a $198 million bond issue for civic improvements passed in 2002.

"I think it's awesome," said Sandy Threlfall, who campaigned for Measure DD. "I think it's important and healthy for people to connect with the water."

To open the channel, Quan blew a signal on a boat horn, workers moved aside a ribbon across the channel and a fleet of small boats moved downstream.

A little armada

It was a Lake Merritt armada with a dozen kayaks, a single canoe, two Chinese dragon boats complete with drummers, two Venetian-style gondolas and two white whaleboats, rowed by crews from the Oakland Women's Rowing Club wearing sailor suits.

"This is the first time anyone has sailed down this channel in 140 years," Quan said. The voyage was short - the reopened channel is only 750 feet long - but significant.

When more work is completed this summer, the volume of water moving in and out of the channel is expected to double, improving water quality in Lake Merritt.

"And in a year," Threlfall said, "there will be a vital wetland marsh here. It will be alive."

Link to Bay Trail

Eventually, the city hopes to connect the Lake Merritt channel with the Bay Trail. "This will become a Bay Area destination people will love," Quan said.

The ceremony also included a small history lesson. In the early days, Lake Merritt wasn't a lake at all, but a tidal lagoon called Laguna Peralta, after a Spanish family that settled in the area.

The lagoon was connected to the estuary - then called San Antonio Creek- by a tidal slough, a waterway that separated Oakland from its smaller cousin, a little town called Brooklyn.

In 1869, Mayor Samuel Merritt built a dam across the slough, and locals began calling the body of water "Merritt's Lake."